Google could be in violation of its own search-ranking policies with an effort that rewards bloggers who write about the benefits of the Chrome browser.

As first reported by SEO Book, Chrome-related posts written by Google-funded bloggers are showing up in the search giant's results. Searching for "This post is sponsored by Google," for example, returned more than 400 pages.

What's the big deal? Google's rules specifically ban the inclusion of paid links to influence search rankings. If you're a blogger who writes about Google Chrome, links to the product, and gets paid for it, for example, you have to include "nofollow" tags in your code so Google's algorithm recognizes it as a paid link.

Without that, your search results could be populated with useless, spammy returns. Google actually went after this type of content last year when it rolled out an international update to its algorithm. Dubbed Panda, it was intended to reduce rankings for sites with low-quality or unoriginal content. Panda was also referred to as a "farmer" algorithm change, because it's supposed to weed out so-called content farms.

Looking at the Chrome-related posts in question, they would likely qualify as content farm material as they provide no real value. Search Engine Land did a deeper dive on some of the results and found that one of the "reviews" went something like this: "Google Chrome helped this small business in Vermont go global. What can Google Chrome do for your future?" Not exactly in-depth.

There's also an accompanying video, in which a flour company touts the power of the Web. But as Search Engine Land noted, the company featured in the video went online in 2006, so it probably got its boost from Internet Explorer since Chrome didn't exist at the time.

In a statement, Google denied any wrongdoing.

"Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users," a spokeswoman said. "We're now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again."

Google worked with Unruly Media on the effort. In a statement, Unruly Media confirmed that "Google paid Unruly to get the Chrome video watched, [but] it did not pay us to get bloggers to write about Chrome. It certainly didn't pay us to get *positive* reviews about Chrome nor to get links back to Google's site."

Unruly Media stressed that it does not require users to link back to an advertiser's site "because we're in the business of video advertising not search engine marketing, so we couldn't care less about link juice."

"What we do pay for is views of video content: our business is to distribute branded video content on behalf of blue-chip brands and their agencies," the firm said.

Unruly said its video does link back to Chrome, but it is "wrapped in Javascript" so as not to influence search engine rankings. Bloggers are asked to use the "nofollow" tags, Unruly said.

This mishap is noteworthy, however, because it flies in the face of rules that Google has enforced against other companies.

Last February, for example, Google buried search results for JC Penney after an expose in the New York Times revealed that the retailer manipulated unpaid, organic search results to make itself the top listing for numerous generic terms like "dresses" and "area rugs." JC Penney, however, denied any wrongdoing.

About the Author

Before joining PCMag.com, Chloe covered financial IT for Incisive Media in NYC and technology policy for The National Journal's Technology Daily in Washington, DC. She has held internships at NBC's Meet the Press, washingtonpost.com, the Tate Gallery press office in London, Roll Call, and Congressional Quarterly. She graduated with a bachelor's deg... See Full Bio

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